


And where do I even begin, atoning for these sins of mine?

by weaslayyy



Category: Brooklyn Nine-Nine (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-29
Updated: 2015-10-29
Packaged: 2018-04-28 18:16:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,182
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5100791
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/weaslayyy/pseuds/weaslayyy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's Jake and Amy, a bar and a conversation, and eventually some type of resolution.</p>
            </blockquote>





	And where do I even begin, atoning for these sins of mine?

“Hey”

The bar’s a little less crowded than it was for her official coronation. Holt, for one, left with a final smile and a clasp of her shoulder. Terry left with him, after half a drink that the Captain snatched out of his hand and chugged, muttering about dancing and poor alcohol tolerance. It’d been weird, especially because Terry Jeffords still holds the precinct record for most shots of tequila consumed over a single night without puking. Amy herself had lasted until shot five, before the bar began to spin unpleasantly. Jake had made it to eight. 

Jake, who’s just taken a seat next to her at her bar counter. She doesn’t usually spend the nights the squad comes out to drink at the counter, but she didn’t feel like her usual seat choices were quite appropriate given her current status as Queen of the Nine Nine. Sometimes, in situations like this she misses Teddy a little. Everyone else had been part of their own groups by the time she joined the Nine-Nine, and even after they’d became her friends she’d never felt quite comfortable dealing with the ins and outs of social interaction without the framework of the Job.

She misses the company of a fellow outsider, if not Teddy himself. Even though Teddy had been fine enough with people, he’d never been close with the squad. The two of them had spent a lot of time sitting at a table on the outskirts of the crowd, part of the proceedings but separate too.

She looks to her left, at Jake who’s never had trouble connecting to a person in his life, who’s spent his entire existence exuding happiness and chaos in equal measures. His head is bowed a little, the fingers on his right hand are playing with a napkin, slowly twisting and shredding the different layers of paper. She can see his thigh shaking a little, bouncing up and down and up and down as he waits for her to respond. He’s biting his lip.

He’s anxious. Interesting.

“Hey”

He doesn’t seem to be affected by her greeting. If she has to put a finger on his response, she’d say that he actually seems more tense: his shoulders have tightened, he’s grasping the liquor glass a little harder. She would be worried, but she’s seen Terry try and fail to crush one a few years back on a dare.

Since Jake doesn’t seem to be in a very vocal mood, Amy decides to put some of those stellar detective skills that earned her the crown to use. He’s anxious, trying to muster the courage to say something, if the way his lips open every so often before closing over a swallow mean anything. His eyes are still on the counter, so it’s hard to tell what he’s so worried about. For all the physical tells she’s trying to read, Amy’s best asset has always been her ability to figure out exactly what Jake’s thinking with a quick glance. It’s a useful skill as Jake’s partner, even more as his girlfriend.

“Are you going to say anything, or is the counter really that interesting?”

It’s not her best quip, or really even a good one, but she hopes it’ll at least get him to look at her. He snorts, swirling the port he’s been drinking since Holt introduced him to it while they were pursuing the Oolong Slayer.

“I owe you an apology.”

Oh. That. She’s been trying to repress everything that didn’t directly relate to her triumph, as if focusing hard enough on the good parts of her day, the pride on Jake and Holt and Rosa’s faces could outweigh how they all shoved her to the side like she always believed they wouldn’t.

She thought they were different, you know? It shouldn’t hurt so much to realize they weren’t. She clutches her crown.

“It doesn’t matter, Jake.”

It does, more than she thought.

“It does, though.”

He’s closed his eyes now, gripping the glass like he’s trying to make it shatter. She’s upset him, she thinks.

“Really, Jake, just forget it. I’m Queen now, and you’ve been properly humiliated--”

Has he?

“But what if you weren’t?”

She’s confused, and suddenly his breathing has picked up. He’s let go of the glass and has moved on to shredding the napkin, tearing off strips and twisting the shreds between his thumbs. Amy reaches over and covers his hands with her left palm, trying to cover the moving parts as best as she can. She scoots her bar stool a little closer, takes a deep breath to cover the way her drink is churning in her stomach and prods him again.

“What if I wasn’t what, queen?”

“Would I have even noticed, Amy? I was so caught up in my head, trying to beat Holt that I forgot about what was really important. Would I have even realized how crappy I had been if you hadn’t beaten me?”

He says the words all in one breath, each one blunter and more forceful as he continues, and now it’s Amy breathing fast as everything she was trying to keep in the crevices of her mind start climbing over the barriers she’d constructed.

High school, mostly, but college too. Years and years of being picked last and friends who complimented her hair before projects and ignored her texts the day after the final exam. Amy Santiago, the girl who wants to be liked and respected and cared about. Amy Santiago, who can’t catch her mouth in front of the people she needs to impress the most. Amy Santiago, who has only ever had one friend outside of the Nine-Nine, and Kylie’s out dancing tonight.

Amy Santiago, the bore.

Amy Santiago, that no-fun stuck up prude, the rain on everyone else’s parade.

She can’t blame Jake for not wanting her on his team, or Holt. She just wishes they hadn’t pretended to make it about each other, instead of admitting that she was the problem.

She glances at Jake, trying to figure out what to say when she notices that he’s finally looking at her, and he looks like he simultaneously wants to vomit (again), cry, and fling himself off of the nearest tall building.

She notices that her lips are moving, and the churning in her stomach starts to coalesce into a giant gooey mass. She slaps the hand not covering Jake’s over her mouth, but it seems like calm and collected Amy left the building a while ago, maybe with the Captain and Terry.

The movement seems to spur Jake into motion. He brings his hands out from underneath hers and grabs the wrist of the hand covering her mouth, tangling their fingers at her side. He moves them to a booth, motioning for her to slide in before him, before shaking his head and sliding over to the far side of the bench leaving her the seat to his right.

“I don’t want you to feel trapped.”

It’s the type of explanation, the kind of thought he puts into making her feel safe and happy that makes part of her want to forgive him. The rest reminds her that he should have done the same hours ago. That he could have, and chose not to, even if it was only subconsciously. He sighs, bending to rest his forehead on his forearms, his hands balled into fists. He waits, breathing for a few long moments before starting to speak, stopping, and then starting again.

“Are we over? I can come pick up my clothes or whatever tomorrow, if you’d like, and drop off all of your stuff too.”

For a second, Amy can’t breathe, panicked mind creating scenarios full of problems she’s somehow caused, until she remembers herself, remembers that it’s not her fault. Remembers that she can be angry, that beyond all the bad memories and that pang of betrayal, she kind of is.

Jake looks absolutely miserable, eyes scrunched as he awaits her judgement. It’s a heady thing, she registers in the back of her mind, this type of power over someone else. Her left hand moves of its own volition, stroking his hair as she smiles a little, not that he can see.

His face smoothes instantly, and she’s pretty sure he just mouthed “Thank God.” After all, she’s nearly flawless at reading lips.

She’s still combing through his curls when her mouth betrays her, and brings up the subject she’d hoped never to think of again.

“You said you loved me.”

The contented smile that was just starting to emerge takes on a bitter twinge, and Amy doesn’t know if she’s prepared for that particular smile to talk about love.

“Kiss of death, if you ask me.”

She wishes she hadn’t asked at all, but feels honor bound to see this trainwreck through. He elaborates.

“Sophia left me, last time.”

And now, Amy’s more confused than before. Her fingers still, as she asks him about his breakup with Sophia for the first time, past the gratuitous offers of sympathy and a sympathetic ear she’d given when the pair had split.

“I told Sophia I loved her, like four times actually, throughout that Defense Attorney ball thing. She wasn’t really at the same place.”

He’s said all of this in a slight monotone, amused even, if Amy had to name an emotion to pair with his confession. He’s fronting, she realizes, trying to hide any residual confusion and hurt behind a layer of bravado. Sometime in the future, Amy promises herself that she’ll make him talk about what happened, what really happened. But for right now, there are more important answers to be told. She lets a few more moments pass, combing her fingers through once, twice, three times before she speaks again.

“Jake....why’d you do it?”

No one needs clarifying for what “it” is. Jake grimaces, opening his eyes as his head rises and he turns his body to face her. Or at least, her profile, because now it’s Amy’s turn to stare at the table surface. She hopes desperately that he doesn’t say “I don’t know.”

“I don’t....I guess....it’s been really weird, these past couple of months, you know?”

She does.

“...and the Captain had just come back, and the freaking Vulture was gone finally, and it felt like everything was coming into place, and like the Heist was something that would prove that everything was finally normal again, and nothing had changed.”

She bites her lip, and stares harder at the surface.

“But things did change, Jake. We did, for one.”

And suddenly, all of the haze dissipates, and she’s just angry.

“We changed, Jake. We all did, and none of us can go back. That’s how life works, and you can’t just toss a relationship with someone you care about aside, just because it doesn’t fit inside the boundaries of your perfect past, okay? You don’t get to treat people like toys, just to satisfy the parameters of your game.”

She takes a breath.

“I love your games, because they’re a part of you. You’re ridiculously competitive, and we both know that I am too. God, the worst part wasn’t even that you didn’t include me. It was that both of you couldn’t see me as Amy, separate from my relationship with the other side, or with yourselves. You both refused to take me because you thought I was working for someone else, and then tried to manipulate me without even caring about how I felt at any point during the day.”

She can feel him looking at her, and if she were braver she’d be able to meet his eyes when she said this.

“Jake, you really hurt my feelings today.”

“I know, and I am so, so sorry.”

Better, at least, than the last time. He continues, putting his hand palm up on the surface next to her, an invitation.

“I know I hurt you Ames, and I’m sorry. I’m sorry that I didn’t pay attention to how you were feeling, sorry that I didn’t realize how I was treating you, sorry I put a game ahead of our relationship. I’m sorry that you felt, even for a second, like you did back in high school...”

She tries to speak, but there’s a lump somewhere in her throat that’s preventing her.

“I’m sorry that I made you forget even for a moment how wonderful I think you are, how brave and smart and kind and beautiful you are. And I’m sorry that I forgot how valuable all of those things make you, and didn’t snap you up as first pick for Team Peralta this year.”

She smiles, and places her hand in Jake’s, grabbing for the spaces in between his fingers as he finishes.

“I’m sorry that I forgot, Queen Amy, that you’re my partner. That you always have been.”

She closes the space between them, and, leaning her head on his shoulder speaks into the easy silence his last declaration has left for them.

“I love you too, butthead.”

 

**Author's Note:**

> I, like many other people was unsatisfied with the end of Sunday's episode so I, like many other people decided to do something about it. This is actually my first piece of fanfiction, as well as my first time writing Peraltiago so I'm really sorry if the characterization isn't quite right. Feedback would be lovely and very much appreciated!


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